Evil
by thatcheshirergin
Summary: Post Exit Wounds. A spike in Rift activity leads to a strange discovery, which in turn leads to some difficult questions. May continue, depending on it's reception comments, people, comments!
1. Chapter 1

The alert came in around three.

Gwen had gone home early, mumbling something about Rhys and her mother in law and bolting out the tourist office, so only Jack and Ianto were around to hear the shrill beeping echo through the hub. Ianto, sound asleep on the cot, nearly leapt out of his skin.

Jack, awake of course, was half-way up the ladder before Ianto remembered where he was.

"Rift activity! Whoa- pretty big, too."

Almost as though it understood and was offering it as a mercy, the rift had been quiet as of late. Since Tosh and Owen's deaths, they'd had hardly anything more than a weevil sightings. At first it'd been a blessing, but Jack, ever the poster-boy for adult ADD, had been growing restless. In a sense, Ianto supposed he should be grateful.

In another sense, it was three in the morning, and Ianto'd been having a wonderful dream.

He paused to pull on his pants before climbing the ladder. When he got to the top Jack was already buzzing around his office, clipping his Webley to his belt and hastily pulling on his suspenders. Ianto sighed and grabbed his own gun from where it rested on Jack's desk, then made his way to the door to step into his shoes. "Where is it?"

"Landough" Jack ran his fingers through his mussed hair, and Ianto wondered once again at his boss's vanity. "Campbell Drive."

"Pretty near, then." That was a relief. Maybe, if their luck held up, they'd be able to deal with whatever'd come through and get back to sleep.

Yeah. That was likely...

"Shall I phone Gwen?"

Jack paused and thought about it. Then shook his head, already eagerly heading for the door. "No need for her to get up."

"Right." Lucky girl...

Because anything else would have been far too original, the rift spike had originated from a decrepit old warehouse by the bay. Ianto sighed deeply as they drove up, and Jack'd tried (not very successfully, mind you) to hide his smile. The archivist hadn't been sleeping so well lately; it just figured that this would happen on the first night he'd managed to sleep soundly.

"You coming?" He asked, hopping out of the car and turning to grin back at his lover. Ianto decidedly did NOT smile back, instead fixing him with a scowl and slowly un-buckling his seat belt. Jack turned back to the building, chuckling under his breath.

"Let's just hope this goes better than the last time we were in a warehouse together. Hey- maybe we can find Myfanwy a mate." Jack got no answer, other than a weary sigh.

The door was bolted shut, but the lock and chain were rusted and the wood warped. One good shove from Jack (Ianto stayed back and wondered if they'd ever use get around to using the bolt cutters he'd purchased...) and the two were in.

Predictably, the insides were dark, dank, and foreboding. In Jack's opinion, anything else would have been incredibly boring. At first glance nothing seemed all that out of the ordinary-- just the usual assortment of spiders and dust- but much of the view was obstructed by boxes and crates.

"Well- might as well split up and have a look around. eh? Get it done faster." This appeal to Ianto's tired side seemed to work, and the archivist jogged off without complaint. Jack, meanwhile, headed in the opposite direction.

Nothing big seemed to stand out as he moved along through the maze of old crates and abandoned fork-lifts. However, as Jack looked closer, he noticed smaller details out of place. Some boxes had been recently moved- the cobwebs hanging off them broken and dangling; and on the floor there were some smudges in the thick layer of dust that covered the floor that upon closer inspection proved to be some sort of tracks leading off to where...

"Jack, I've found something!"

Jack dropped what he was doing and jogged over to the source of Ianto's voice.

"What--" His voice stopped as he skidded to a halt. Well... that wasn't what he'd expected. "Oh. Wow."

"I think we ought to call Gwen now, sir." Ianto said dryly, already pulling out his phone.

On the floor, huddled up against one of the boxes and staring at them with wide, terrified eyes, was a little boy.


	2. Chapter 2

_""""You found a what? Ianto-- I can't here you. Is that a baby crying in the background?"_

"Yes! That's just what I trying to tell you!" Ianto called, raising his voice to ridiculously loud levels to be heard over the din. "we went out after a signal and--"

"I'm sorry, love, you'll have to speak up. I can't--" Whatever else she'd been about to say was drowned out as Jack attempted taking another step forward and the child let out a terrified scream in protest.

"Oh, for god's sake..." Ianto thrust the phone in Jack's direction. "Talk to Gwen."

Jack took the phone, watching with an amused smirk as Ianto strode forward, dropping to his haunches a foot or two from the cowering boy. "Hold on a second, Gwen." He said into the phone. This was something he wasn't about to miss. "Ianto and I found a baby, and Ianto's about to try and calm him down. Meet us at the hub in a half hour, ok?"

"Wait- Jack- what?" But Jack hung up the phone. No way was he going to miss this.

Ianto was crouched down at eye-level to the boy, smiling genuinely. "Hi there." He said, tone mild, rather than falsely friendly. "Sorry about my friend here- he's a bit of an idiot." He said, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, and Jack thought he caught a near-smile ghost across the child's face. "Anyway, we need you to come with us, ok? We aren't going to hurt you-- I promise. We just need to get out of this creepy place, alright? It's giving me the creeps. Ok?"

At that, the boy nodded tentatively, a shock of sandy-brown bangs falling into his face. Ianto grinned broadly. "Good lad- now I'm going to come over and pick you up, ok? I know you're big enough to walk, but you don't have any shoes, do you? We don't want you to step on something gross." That wasn't entirely true-- while the boy was, in fact, barefooted he was also missing pretty much everything else, and was dressed only in what appeared to be a men's undershirt. The implications of that were a bit worse than Jack was willing to consider just then- though he had no doubt that he'd be forced to look into it sooner or later. "I'm just going to come over and pick you up, ok? Nothing else. Alright?"

The boy didn't respond for a very long time, and Jack worried that they were going to once again be stuck at an impasse and would end up having to drag the child out kicking and screaming, but at long last he offered a slow nod and raised shaky arms out towards Ianto. Grinning, the archivist strode forward and easily scooped the toddler up into his arms, burying his face in the man's shoulder and sticking a thumb into his mouth. He still refused to even look at Jack, and tensed noticeably when the captain came near, but it was a pretty huge improvement none the less. "Never knew you were so good with kids!" Jack exclaimed as they headed over to the car, "How'd you learn that?"

"Years of practice." Ianto sighed, but didn't elaborate, and Jack let the subject drop as they reached the car. He did, however, make note of it for later.

The SUV turned out to be a trial in itself. Expansive as it was, Ianto's supply kit in the back did not include a car-seat, and even if it had it was doubtful they'd be able to use it. Now he was in Ianto's arms, he absolutely refused to let go, even for a moment. In the end, Ianto wound up in the front seat with the child, the seat belt pulled awkwardly over both of them and by the time they reached the hub both he and the boy were at the verge of a heart-attack, courtesy of Jack's driving and the ten or eleven red-lights they'd blasted through on the way to there.

"...Who the _hell _thought it would be a good idea to let you drive I will never know..." Ianto muttered darkly as they headed down the lift, the child staring wondrously around. Ianto thanked whatever deity was watching out for them that Myfanwy was sleeping. Skittish as the kid was, Ianto wasn't eager to find out how he reacted to giant dinosaurs.

"Now, now- watch you're language in front of the children!" Jack chided him, his stern tone pretty much ruined by laughter.

"Yes, well, I have to say that there are worse things than swearing around children-- like, for instance, getting into horrific car accidents while they're not in car-seats--"

"Ianto! Jack! He was cut off as Gwen, looking very much like she'd just been pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and had barely had time to throw on some clothes before heading out, stormed up to them with a pissed off expression on her face. "What the hell is going on? This better be good, Rhys and I were--" She stopped, though, and her anger faded slightly as she saw the small figure in Ianto's arms. "OH! Hello, there!" She said, tone changing immediately. She smiled down at the boy, but he resolutely did not so much as look at her, keeping his face buried in Ianto's chest.

"He's a bit shy," Ianto explained, "He's een through quite the ordeal tonight, haven't you?" He gently used his one free hand to card through the boy's hair, and the toddler seemed to relax a bit, though he still refused to meet Gwen's eye.

"When you said that was a baby in the background, I didn't think you were serious! What on earth happened?"

"We'll explain later," Jack told her. "In the mean-time, could you check missing person's for a child matching his description? And uh... check a few years back, too." Odds were that this kid had been desposited by the rift, and that being the case, there was no way of knowing just how long ago the kid had been taken.

"I'd love to, Jack, but I don't even know how old he is- and I can't exactly get much of a look at his face--"

"About two years." Ianto supplied. "Brown hair. About three feet tall and wighing..." He hefted the boy in his arms, his expression turning speculative. "Oh, I'd say... about three hundred kilos?" At that there was a definite giggle, and the boy even pulled away a bit to look disbelievingly at Ianto. Ianto took the oppurtunity to smile goofily and take note of his eye-colour. "About fifteen kilos. Brown hair, and green eyes."

"Right." Gwen said; at least as surprised as Jack at Ianto's obvious ease with the child. "Uh- how far back should I go, Jack?"

Jack shrugged. "There was a pretty big spike in the rift before we found him, so there's a good bet that he got dropped here by it... I'd go back as far as you can."

"Lovely." Gwen sighed, already heading over to a computer. "A two year old with brown hair and green eyes... Can't be many of them in the past fifty years..." She was going to be searching through files forever...

"In the mean time, someone should check the kid out, give him a complete physical. Ow--" Jack stopped himself a moment to late, and there was a long, awkward silence as every person in the room (minus one) pretended not to notice Jack's slip up. "Someone needs make sure he's not hurt, and that he's completely human, for that matter..."

"Didn't you say Martha was in Bristol?" Ianto supplied helpfully, "Why don't you call her. See if she can find the time to come down. It's nearly six already, if she's there one work she'll probably be up soon."

"Yeah... Yeah. Good idea, Ianto."

"And I'll take him down to your cot while you do that. We'll get some privacy, ok? You can maybe get some sleep, alright? And if you want," Ianto added casually, already on his way to Jack's office. "You can tell me your name, so I know what to call you."

The boy leaned up and whispered something in Ianto's ear, and the archivist grinned widely. "Look under the name Bryn." Ianto called to Gwen.

Jack made yet another mental note to investigate Ianto's experience with children. Ianto's file had been pretty inclusive, but Jack didn't remember saying much of anything about kids.


End file.
